A few years ago I spent a summer sailing in the Baltic with my good friend John Baker. Mostly it was easy sailing and sunny days. Then this.
I’m hauling up the main and
putting in two reefs because today is the windiest day of our three week cruise
in the Baltic. My gut is knotted and my
jaw is tense. The sea is lumpy and
choppy and uncomfortable. We get
underway and I spend way too long fiddling with the buckle of my safety
harness. I’m tetchy with the skipper for
not showing me how to use it before we left the safety and calmness of the
marina. He’s tetchy back. He’s concentrating on the channel markers,
trying to avoid the commercial traffic while I, the rookie crew member fiddle
with a simple buckle on the harness.
Eventually I clip onto the ring on the side of the cockpit and I’m safe.
It’s an exhausting day. I’m
constantly braced against the cockpit, legs on the opposite bench, arm crooked
over the cockpit side, trying to keep my seat.
Trying not to be thrown from one side of the boat to the other. When I’m hungry or thirsty I just have to
bear it. My stomach hovers just on the
right side of nausea but I’m not risking a visit to the galley in case nausea
gets the better of me.
The skipper checks the level
of water in the bilges. He’s below for
five minutes, peering into crevices and bilges with a torch. Then he scrambles onto the deck and collapses
on his back and closes his eyes. He’s
white and quiet for ten minutes. I’m a
little disconcerted that such an experienced seaman is feeling bad but at the
same time heartened that the discomfort in my stomach and dullness in my head
are not just the result of inexperience.
While he recovers I’m at the tiller, bracing and shifting my weight,
staying focussed on the direction of the boat, of the wind and of our course on
the satnav screen.
I’m irritable as well as
nauseous. We should have waited another
day in Helsinki before attempting the long crossing to Tallinn, Estonia’s
capital. The forecast is for strong
winds and rain and all the weather is coming from where we want to go. I know we can’t sail into the wind. We have to motor almost into the wind all
day. It’s wet from both the rain and the
spray from the fractious and unpredictable chop. I’m moody and sulky and quiet and pissed off
at the skipper because it’s his fault that I’m cold and wet. I’m picking up bruises from collisions with
the teak deck.
Hour after miserable hour I
gaze out into the grey wet day. Reading is impossible, a
sure way to ensure breakfast is regurgitated onto the deck. I’m afraid to go below for the same reason
and I decide that it’s too bumpy to attempt sleep.
Fast ferries plough past
from Tallinn and Helsinki. Appearing and
disappearing in a mass of spray, passengers invisible behind tinted
windows. I imagine them warm and sipping
coffee or quaffing beer as I duck, unsuccessfully, another bucketful of the
Baltic.
Now I see the outline of the
Estonian coast, low and dark on the monochromatic horizon. After hours of monotonous seascape I can see
our destination. Another rainy squall
hits us, stronger and more intense than the last. The wind speed indicator shoots up from
twenty-three knots to thirty-odd. It
feels manageable, no need for any drastic action. The grey sheets of rain close in around
us; visibility decreases to a few
boat-lengths. And then the squall is gone. Moving out into the Baltic it sweeps down in vertical
lines from steely clouds to steely sea.
The skipper pumps sea and rainwater from the bilges. The dark line on the horizon is more
substantial now. I can make out a tower,
just a blip above the low ridge of land.
More commercial shipping
activity is funnelling in and out of Tallinn
Bay. We’re more vigilant. Large commercial ships are unlikely to give
us much quarter. It’s up to us to get
out of the way. We struggle to keep some
wind in the sails and the boat’s engine throbs away below keeping us edging
towards the harbour.
Then I notice that the
clouds in the distance off the starboard bow have reached down in a black
curtain to the sea. We watch it for a
while. It’s travelling fast. The sea turning to the black of the sky. We roll up the jib but keep up the mainsail
with its two reefs.
The black squall closes in
fast. I say how much blacker it is than
the last one we weathered. The one that spun our wind vane to thirty-five
knots. Should we take down the
main? No, we’ll leave it up for a bit
longer.
When it hits the violence of
it shocks me. The sudden blast of
stinging rain feels as if someone had flipped the switch in a wind-tunnel. I’m sitting to starboard, on the windward
side of the cockpit as the boat pushed hard over onto its port rail. The skipper heads us directly into the squall
and opens the throttle. The engine growls
defiantly. I swallow hard, squinting
into the rain, now like millions of needles attacking my face. The wind dial shows 35 knots, then 40. Jesus!
But it doesn’t stop there. The skipper is struggling to keep us heading
into the wind. The main keeps filling
and pushing the bow out of the wind, tilting the boat at an alarming
angle. 45 knots. The port rail is in the water and the sea is
rushing along the deck. The wind screams
and roars and I feel an icy hand clawing at my gut. 47 knots.
It’s got to peak out soon. The
skipper, as if reading my thoughts, says that these squalls don’t last
long. His eyes are wide, concentration,
focus. Should we take down the
main? No, it’s too wild. Too dangerous for only one man to handle it’s
flapping madnes. We bite hard. More throttle, almost at the engine’s
limits. Rocks on the satnav map are
getting closer. The squall has to stop
soon or the rocks will stop us. Did you
notice where those ships were before the squall hit? I’d forgotten. 50 knots.
Oh, fucking hell! The boat is
pushed over, further and further, a wave hits, I’m standing up straight
clinging to the cockpit. The wave surges
down my back, inside my waterproofs but I don’t care. The boat is on its side, sails nearly in the
water, I’m looking straight into the Baltic Ocean, just below my feet. Trying not to fall, I’m hooked in but how
would I get back into the boat in this?
But that’s the worst of
it. The wind drops to 45 knots and it
feels easy and manageable now. 43 knots
and we’ve put the boat back on course.
37 knots and I’m sitting to leeward thinking of family. The adrenalin
recedes. Relief and exhilaration and
euphoria mix and I shout profanities into the sky and laugh and we recount it
all to each other over and over again on the way into the marina and later over
a few beers. I feel more alive than in
many years and marvel at the lack of fear in the moment I was staring down into
the water; the moment when the sail
seemed as if it were about to dip into the Baltic Sea, the moment when life was
real, not the meaningless, monotonous grind of workaday.
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